New Music Friday: 8 albums to hear this week

It’s been just a few weeks since A. G. Cook released his debut album, 7G, but now the PC Music head honcho is back with his “second debut album”, Apple. Where 7G was a vast, erratic collection of ideas, split over seven discs and 49 tracks, Apple is more of a traditional artist album, refining his ideas down to 10 key songs. Still, this is A. G. Cook we’re talking about, so it’s hardly a conventional record by any stretch of the imagination. Singer-songwriter music rubs up against aggro-club bangers; a cover of Oneohtrix Point Never’s “Animals” sits next to strange vocal experiments – it’s weird, wild, and wonderful.

Elsewhere this week, Avalon Emerson reveals her mix for the iconic DJ-Kicks series, Irish poet-rocker Sinead O’Brien shares her new EP Drowning in Blessings, and Alicia Keys returns with the self-titled ALICIA. Take a listen below.